


Spilled Ink

by thestarkinwinterfell, tywinning



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aerys II's reign, F/M, NSFW, Porn With Plot, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 11:03:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3206825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarkinwinterfell/pseuds/thestarkinwinterfell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/pseuds/tywinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tywin proposes to Joanna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spilled Ink

**Author's Note:**

> “Men say that Tywin never smiled, but he smiled when he wed your mother, and when Aerys made him Hand. When Tarbeck Hall came crashing down on Lady Ellyn, that scheming bitch, Tyg claimed he smiled then." _-A Feast for Crows_
> 
> Originally published on [my tumblr](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com/post/108693658156/false-idols-spilled-ink-a-tywin-joanna).
> 
> thestarkinwinterfell and I wrote this several years ago, and thankfully it survived the publication of _The World of Ice and Fire_.

Tywin carefully scrutinized his reflection in the mirror.

They had tied his hair back. The ribbon itched the back of his neck, but he would leave it, having worn it like this at all the greater moments of his life. It was tradition, one of many, tiny ones. His life was coded in them now. Frowning, he looked away.

He dipped his hand into one of the pockets of his doublet, closing around the cold metal there. He ran his thumb over the ridges, feeling for any imperfections that his eyes had failed to notice. The finest goldsmith in Lannisport, a portly old man who squinted at everything more than a foot away, had come personally to King’s Landing to deliver this commission. When Tywin received the man, he had immediately presented a thick enlarging glass to examine his work. The precision was so impressive he had paid the goldsmith double before sending him on his way. Today demanded more than precision, though.  Today – the day Aerys would officially proclaim him Hand before the entire court – demanded perfection.  He checked again for flaws, though he had already searched a hundred times.  There were still none to be found.

Someone would be bringing food to break his fast, he knew, but he would not eat. His stomach rolled as he paced about the room, unable to stand still.

The door to the adjoining room opened, creaking as badly as Jaehaerys ’ s old Hand. Tywin frowned but didn’t bother to look, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his collar. “Set the tray on the desk. Pour the wine, and go.”

 ”I thought we agreed I wasn’t your servant.” The lock clicked.

He looked through the open door at the woman in his solar, examining the room. She was the sunrise reflected in the Narrow Sea: bright and beautiful and painful to look at. Her gold locks framed her face so naturally, so precisely, he wondered how much time she had spent arranging them to create such an artful look. Dressed all in velvet, she was a vision, though in all the years that he had known her he had never expected something less. Her gown was red, and her jewelry gold; their house colors. Today, his colors.

“I shouldn’t be surprised, should I, Joanna?”

Joanna shook her head and boosted herself up onto the desk. She tucked her legs under her, leaning back on one hand.

Tywin moved around behind her so that she would have to crane her neck to look at him, perched as she was so carefully amidst the stacks of new parchment and bottles of ink. She stared forward, however, resolutely, waiting until he stepped in front of her once again.

He spoke when it became clear that she would not. “Do you like the rooms, my lady? They’re larger than yours.”

“Lonelier, too, high above us all in this tower.”

“Doesn’t look so lonely from where I stand. I’ve had these rooms not even two days, and already you deign to grace me with your presence.”

“Let me see it.”

“I’m afraid you will need to be more specific.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

He tapped a finger against his lips. “I pray you forgive me, because I really can’t think of anything.”

“Mayhaps I can help you. It’s gold. Worn around the neck. Show it to me.”

“Oh, do you mean this?” He pulled out the Hand’s Chain, letting it dangle in front of her and then just as quickly snatching it away. “But no, you can’t possibly mean that. You told me the other day you weren’t interested in another necklace.” He put the chain back in his pocket and cast about the room. “Now what could I have to show you? You’ve always been difficult, Joanna, never just telling me what you want.”

“I’m the difficult one,” she said flatly.

Tywin put both hands on the desk, leaning over her. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to fuck you?”

Joanna traced the hard line of his jaw with a finger.  “At least as many times as I’ve wanted to fuck you, love. But it’s always been a game of … restraint.”

Tywin caught her wrist as her other hand tried to reach for his pocket.  “Oh, this went far beyond mere restraint. Over two years, I have waited, while you tantalized, always staying just out of my reach. You’ve perfected the art of torture, with yourself as an instrument of pain.” He turned away from her. “I haven’t even begun to pay you back.”

“And I thought today was for settling debts. A pity.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, my lady, but—“

Joanna sat on the edge of the desk, the red velvet of her skirt bunched around her waist. There was nothing underneath but her.

Before he could say a word, she hopped down, her skirt falling to the floor like a curtain. “Like I said. A pity. But if this is how you wish to play...” She went to the door and started to turn the key in the lock.

The door swung open, just a crack, before the whole of Tywin’s weight was thrust upon it. With a thud and a click, it slammed shut, Joanna’s hand still grasping the key and the handle, her nose nearly pressed up against the wood.

“You misunderstood me.”

Joanna cocked her head to one side.  “I misunderstood you?” 

“Yes.” Tywin took the chain out of his pocket and slipped it over her head. The golden hands hugged her breasts.

She turned to face him, slowly, so that the door was at her back, her arms at her sides, her hands pressed flat against the dark wood. He could feel her breath on his face, see the way her neck bobbed as she swallowed.

 “What is it like? All that power?”  Joanna’s eyes looked more black than green as she looked up at him.

When he reached forward and took her elbow, she did not flinch away. “It’s like …” Tywin tried to find a way to describe it. “Like holding the finest steel in my hands, but never even having to swing it.  Just holding it is enough to make everyone fall before me.”

She leaned into him. “Yes.”

“And it’s like being back at Tarbeck Hall.” His hand crawled up the back of her neck.

“Tell me.” There was urgency in her voice that he had never heard before.

“We searched the rubble for survivors. There weren’t many.” He closed his eyes, reliving it. “But I kept hearing this small noise, even after my brother insisted there was no one left. I had to find it.” The corners of his mouth turned up in memory, the ghost of a smile. “And I did. It was blood dripping down from what remained of the floor above. Ellyn Tarbeck’s body hung over the edge. That is what power is like: silence.  A silence so deep that the only noise you can hear is the soft patter of your enemy’s blood, because no one left alive would dare say a disrespectful word to you.”

“Yes.” Joanna dug her nails into his shoulder.

“But the best part is how it tastes.  That’s the part I cannot get enough of.” He slipped her dress off one shoulder, baring her right breast. The chain was cold against his cheek when he bent to kiss her neck.

Joanna licked her lips, swallowing hard. “What does it taste like?”

“Power tastes like you.” And he bit her, not hard enough to draw blood, not even hard enough to leave a mark, but he could feel her breath hitch.

“Ask me again,” Joanna commanded, tangling her hands in his hair. “Ask me now.”

Tywin looked up at her. He knew what she meant. But he would not ask her. No more questions, or hesitation. The time for that was over. “Marry me,” he said.

Joanna smiled. She reached forward and tore at his doublet until the thread fastening its small gold buttons strained and broke.  For a moment time stopped, the buttons suspended in midair, Joanna’s fingers soft and still.  And then they clattered to the ground like worthless little beads.

He in turn pulled at her dress so that it tore, loudly, down the back, strings snapping. The chain hung heavy around her breasts. Her hands clawed at him, the red ribbon fell from his hair, his clothes peeled away to reveal his shoulders to her touch, his back, his chest. She kissed him as though he had brought her some bleeding, reeking carcass, enough for a great beast like her to feast on for days. Her lips tasted like the fear of lesser men. He could taste Tyg in them, at Tarbeck Hall, and his father, and the other men that his father’s whore had fucked. Tywin bit down, and only tasted blood.

Her tongue flicked out to touch the wound, and his hands were hard on her. Joanna had never been so real to him. Always like smoke, or fire, she had slipped between his fingers every time he grasped her close. But now she was heavy, like stone or dead men, and she could no longer slip away. He sought her, beneath her bunched skirts, and his fingers found her wet. She arched her hips toward him.

She was too big for the desk, though he would not have expected it, when he threw her down, not gently, and watched her bend against the wood and send the parchment flying. The inkwells broke around her, some falling, others seeming to explode so that their different color inks spreading like bloodstains on the floor. The gold one broke along the edge of the desk, and her undone hair slipped into it, glittering. She spread her legs and pulled up her skirts and wrapped her hands around his neck when he leaned close enough. Her hands were wet with something. She opened her mouth so that he could see the blood he had drawn, painting her lips an even darker red, blooming along her tongue. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him to her. Through his breeches, he could feel her, hot and wet and waiting.

“I have a dream,” Joanna said, arching her back and moving against him, “almost every night. I am standing in the Red Keep. The Iron Throne is behind me, and the room is full of men.  Hundreds of them, nameless, faceless, anonymous. You are standing beside me, and I order you to kill one. You do, and his blood spills everywhere. It stinks. Marry me, you say. I order you to kill another. His blood leeches underneath the feet of all the others. Marry me, you say. I order you to kill another, and so it goes, until they are all dead and we are the only ones left.”

His hand moved up along the warm skin of her thigh, down to the back of her knee. He could feel her bones standing out, straining against her skin as she held him.  “ Why are you telling me this? ”

Joanna sighed and closed her eyes. “Because of what always happens next.”

“What happens next?”

Her eyes fluttered open, her bloody lips parted and her legs, too, loosed around him.

“I marry you,” she said.

He was fumbling with his breeches, with laces too small for his clumsy hands, and his cock was free only a moment before he pushed into her, leaned over her, let the desk creak and their hips meet with every thrust. She cried out in his ear, clawed at his back and his chest, brought her hands to her own breasts and pinched at them. Her hands were splattered with red ink. It rubbed off on her skin. He could taste it on her, sweet—salty—and something bitter, too.

He reveled in it.

It was not until later, when Joanna had stolen out and away down the steps and the corridors beyond to change her gown for the ceremony, and he was bent, double, retrieving little golden buttons from the floor, that Tywin saw it. Standing before the mirror, his breath caught.  His smile dimmed ever so slightly, for just a moment.

There, in bright red ink, on his bare chest, just above his beating heart, was a handprint. The fingers were not spread, the palm not pressed flat. Instead, the print was pinched and wrinkled, as though Joanna had been trying to reach inside.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a much larger work, but this stands on its own.
> 
> If you're looking for more Tywin/Joanna fanfiction, I maintain a comprehensive list of works from AO3, LJ, & tumblr [here](http://joannalannister.tumblr.com/tjficrecs).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [To catch aflame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384569) by [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft)




End file.
